[kinoxi]

It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer.

:)

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

This is what happens when you reduce man to an animal who came about by chance. Animals and now even the nonliving are being considered for human rights.

Robots are supposed to be ethical slaves. They should be considered as such. When they get old or break down and it is more expensive to fix them than to buy another, they should be sold or recycled. They should not get pensions.

Even Star Wars droids don't get that many rights--and they're sentient (actual robots wouldn't be; Star Wars is fictional, after all).

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

ping?

[antiRepublicrat]

Why do they even bother? This has been debated in sci-fi novels for decades.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

[Kirkwood]

Bad news for Magnus.

[AntiKev]

Everyone here should read "The Age of Spiritual Machines - When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence" by Ray Kurzweil. An excellent introduction and perspective on where we've come from and where we are going.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Not much offensive intended to them, but South Koreans seem a bit......off when it comes to high-tech. They predict such grand yet crazy things. It suggests that while they use a lot of high technology, they weren't the ones who created it, and they have a limited grasp of the purpose of it.

P.S. One of those other crazy things was a prediction that within the next twenty years, the internet (and computers) would emit smells. Oddly, the Japanese seem to be the same way. It might be a "generalized" East Asian thing, then, not unique to South Korea.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Not much offense intended to them, but South Koreans seem a bit......off when it comes to high-tech. They predict such grand yet crazy things. It suggests that while they use a lot of high technology, they weren't the ones who created it, and they have a limited grasp of the purpose of it.

P.S. One of those other crazy things was a prediction that within the next twenty years, the internet (and computers) would emit smells. Oddly, the Japanese seem to be the same way. It might be a "generalized" East Asian thing, then, not unique to South Korea.

[MikeGranby]

"The Cylons were created by man..."

[M203M4]

Last year a UK government study predicted that in the next 50 years robots could demand the same rights as human beings.

Oh come on. "Progressivism" finds a novel way to further "progress" down the gutter into a realm of absolute stupidity. The left-wingers, with their envirofascism, animal "rights" extremism, economic backwardness, hatred of military research, hatred of pharmaceuticals, hatred of biotech, and hatred of modern farming methods, want to cripple another area of research by giving machines a "bill of rights". They are blowing away the competition to become the title-holder chamption luddites.

These freaks are going to cripple science in the west, while the east continues unshackled. Competition is good, but these handicaps are not. Even in my research I get hassled by ethicists (left-wing lawyers, sociologists, the full gamut of worthlessly degreed, and other drinkers from the fountain of stupid that don't know the first thing about science, but seem adept at trying to cripple it nonetheless).

Sorry for the rant that has only marginally to do with the article...

[Charles Martel]

We can still blast robot spys when we find them, though.... right?

[mkjessup]

Long ago, in the literary world far far before Star Wars, Star Trek, or any of that stuff, was an author by the name of Lester del Ray, and I read the following book and thought it was one of the greatest novels ever. If you can find a copy, it is WELL worth reading:

It is a serious book, and it addressed MANY of these issues, and that was 1965. Hint: have some Kleenex.

[syncked]

What will humans be accused of when they discriminate against robots? Zoe-ism? Bio-centrism? Robotophobia?

[SampleMan]

Does this mean robots will be eligible for welfare?

[BenLurkin]

An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots??????????

[Disambiguator]

The article didn't mention sexual use/abuse of robots. I'm sure they will be built for that purpose, too.

This quote from the article barely touches on that subject:

"Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives," Park Hye-Young of the ministry's robot team told the AFP news agency.

Anyone who read Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy" and all the other novels that went with it knows that the robots had, uh, "capabilities".

Maybe Park Hye-Young is imagining an android wife is something he might enjoy.

[capitalist229]

Sentient ? We haven't even reverse engineered the human brain yet. According to the most optimistic projections that won't happen until 2020 (Kurzweil).

Do you even realize how much it will then take to simulate human intelligence ? I give it another 25 years minimum for a room sized appliance on the HAL 9000 level.

Then another 10 years to miniaturize it for a home robot.

Maybe in our lifetimes.

BUMP

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

This has made it to one of the front page articles on the BBC News homepage, and is the most read and second most emailed article.

Although interesting, it shouldn't be one of the three main articles (at least it isn't the big biggy article (the Indonesian plane crash)).

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

science fiction ping?